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Every time I walk into a classroom I ask the students assembled what newspapers they read. Inevitably they say that they read the New York post and the Daily News. I then ask them why they read those papers and inevitably they say because of 1) the sports 2) the horoscope 3) the comic strips.

I then ask these same students what they see about themselves when they read these newspapers and overwhelmingly they say:

1) we see that we will be drug dealers

2) we see we will be teenage parents

3) we see we will be drop outs

4) we see ourselves being killed or killing

5) we see only the negative

When asked how this makes them feel they tell me that it makes them feel really bad about themselves and that it really hurts them and makes them feel like they will not amount to anything.

I then ask them why they read papers like that and they say, you know you are right, we should not read papers that do not portray us in a good light.

I simply give you this story to say that we need to support the organizations that support us. Why do we give money to people that put us down, like the New York Post.

The images of our community continue to be bleak for the most part in the “Mainstream media.” We are still portrayed as drug addicted high-school dropouts on welfare with children out of wedlock.

We are so much more.

In one school that I visited the teacher had started having her fifth grade students read the Amsterdam News every Thursday. They would then discuss the articles and learn about things that were going on in their community. When I came in and talked to that class a young woman said to me, ” before I started reading the Amsterdam I did not know that I could be a doctor or an astronaut or accountant, I thought I was just going to grow up to be what all those other papers thought of me. Thank you.”

This young woman was able to see the other side of what she could be, not what the media portrayed her as. That is why the Black press is so important, that is why we need to support the organizations that support us. We need to support the advertisers that support us and we need to be clear in our messaging that we will not stand for the disrespect that we are getting from institutions like the New York Post and News Corp.

The New York Post is really arrogant. Actually i am not sure it that goes far enough. They are downright despicable. They pray upon the communities of Black and Brown, putting them down whenever possible. Making them the villains even when they are the victims. Thousands of people gathered outside of the News Corp yesterday to protest the heinous cartoon that appeared on the pages of the New York Post. Thousands of people called the Post and Fox to tell them how angry they were that they would print a cartoon so un-funny and distasteful and most of all racist. Yet the Post basically ignored the outrage and offered this non-apology:

THAT CARTOON

Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon – caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut – has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over the chimp’s body: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon – even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

This evening, the New York Post issued a half-apology for Wednesday’s notorious stimulus/chimp cartoon which inspired outraged among many readers. Though editor Col Allen defended the cartoon in a st…

This evening, the New York Post issued a half-apology for Wednesday’s notorious stimulus/chimp cartoon which inspired outraged among many readers. Though editor Col Allen defended the cartoon in a st…

DISGUSTING
That is what that non-apology is DISGUSTING.

The NY Post has gone mad. Do they really believe that anyone will accept an apology that reads like that. It is completely disingenuous and insulting. Our community deserves more.

In the “apology ” it states, “However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback. To them, no apology is due.”

There would not be any apology to anyone had those that were in the “media and in public life” not stood up and said anything. The cartoon is just one thing the New York Post has to apologize for. Next they need to apologize for the apology; and in addition they need to apologize to all the people that they have disparaged and the communities they have hurt over the years. The Post and News Corp have to learn that they can be taken down and the community has had enough.

We are mad as Hell and we are not gonna take it anymore

Below are the numbers for both New York senators as well ad the Federal Communications Commission. Call them and tell them what you think of the Post and News Corp.

I have been trying to avoid blogging like the plague. It is something that I have not wanted to do, but it is now time that I let my voice be heard, especially on a day like today.

Early this morning I received an email from a friend with a link to the New York Post. I knew that whatever it was could not be good, but I never thought I would see what I saw.

racism at its core

I was floored. I am not sure what actually was the most offensive thing about this cartoon – the fact that someone actually came up with it or the fact that the Post actually printed it. This just shows you how important other voices in the media are. I bet the folks of color at the NY Post are completely embarrassed. What News Corp allowed to go onto the pages is offensive on so many levels.

Firstly, what does the chimp going mad have to do with the stimulus package? It certainly seems like the Post equates a monkey with black folks (Our president for one) and that the chimp going mad is indicative of a black man going crazy.

The problem with this logic is that there is none. The stimulus package is something that can work if implemented properly, and there is nothing crazy about it.

What is crazy is that the Post found some way to connect the mad chimp and the stimulus package.

Secondly, showing cops shooting a monkey ( the image of which has historically been equated with Blacks) continues to play into the fact that cops shoot Black men often and that it is just a regular occurence.

New York Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan said in a statement that the cartoon was “a clear parody.

“It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist”

What Allan fails to realize is that Sharpton is just one of thousands of voices that abhor what the Post has done. This is so far beyond Sharpton, who was simply the first to speak up in public but not the first to be outraged. The community is up in arms.

The Amadou Diallo shooting was ten years ago; the Sean Bell shooting is still fresh in our minds. Black men are killed on a daily basis. Black men are killed by cops across this country far too often. Our president is a Black man and it looks like the Post is almost calling for an assasination.